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Part Fourteen - Meeting Up With Todd Again

Often it seems as if my life does not follow a straight path from birth
to death, rather it is a series of circles. I always have a sense of
returning, even when I seem to be moving forward. By the time Dylan's
mother made it to Tacoma, I was ready to return to work. I do not wish to
give anyone the impression that my ex-wife Chris is anything less than a
very good parent; she was just not ready to make the move when I was.

As I have already stated, fate is a directing force in my life, and the
four months before she arrived, ranked as one of the most significant
periods of my life. Things seemed to work out the way they were meant to
happen. Those four months alone with my son changed the type of person I
was. Chris, and other people, have always said to me that my life was too
hectic, and that I never took the time "to smell the roses." Dylan and I
became more than just father and son, we became friends; hanging buddies.
We explored the world around us, always seeking to find that which we had
not seen before. Dylan called this going on adventures. Without this
four-month period, I am not sure that our relationship would be what it is
today; so it seemed as if fate understood that Dylan and I needed this
time together. Like some guardian angel, fate provided the opportunity to
fulfill a need.

In those four months I was also able to accomplish with my hands what
those bozos down in San Diego were unable to do in a year. Now that I was
ready to go back to work, I went down to the library and found the address
of every shipyard within 50 miles of where I lived, and sent out resumes
to each. Within days I got two responses. The first wanted to send me up
to Dutch Harbor, Alaska. If it were not for Dylan, I would have jumped at
this opportunity, but being with Dylan was far more important to me. The
next job offer came from Todd Shipyard. Back in the days when the
shipyards were booming Todd had yards all over the country, but when the
industry went bust they closed down all of them except their yard in
Seattle. It seemed as if I was fated to meet up with the last Todd.

Todd Seattle was doing massive overhauls on Coast Guard ships and ship
repairs. Again, fate stepped in and I found myself working on the repair
side of the pipe department. This did not happen very often to new
employees, but as fate would have it, I walked into Todd at just the right
moment. Among the ships we worked on most often were tankers, tote boats
(Totem Ocean Trailer Express), APL container ships (American Presents
Line), cruise ships, ferry boats and fish processors. It did not take the
leadman long to see that I knew what I was doing and that I was good at
it. It is not that, I as a person, was better than anyone else, but I now
had been doing this work for 16 years.
There was not anything new in the work for me until the day I was sent to
a tote boat (we called them boats, but they were really full size ships).
The tote boat had been docked at its terminal and some minor repairs were
being done on its engine. The machinists had the sea water intakes opened
up, when someone opened the seawater valve. That flooded the engine room
with seawater until the ship hit bottom. They pumped all the water out,
and then towed the ship to Todd.

From the outside you could not tell that something was different from
other time we had worked on the ship, but we knew that this was not to be
an ordinary job when we were told to put on rain gear from head to toe.
Once inside the engine room we could see the reason behind the rain gear.
There had been 35 feet of seawater in the engine room and the whole place
was dripping with oil. Since oil is lighter than water, all the oil had
risen to the highest points of the flooded engine room We had a few small
jobs that we had to do before the engine room was steam cleaned, then we
had to recycle the fuel oil through filters because it had been
contaminated. The sparkies (electricians) had the most work because they
had to replace all the wiring below the flood line. Most of the
pipefitting work was on the steam lines. Steam pipes expand when heated by
steam, and contract when they cooled. This contraction will cause the
steam joints to leak when the heat from the steam hits them. This is why
ships don't like to shut down their boilers unless they have to. One of
the first things they had to do when the ship flooded was to shut down the
boilers. Boilers are potentially the most dangerous part of a ship; if a
boiler blows, what is left of the ship is only good for scrap. With the
sudden cooling of the steam system by the flood, we knew that every steam
gasket had to be replaced.

My job was to break all the pipes loose off the steam feed pump, which
had to be opened up for inspection. This meant, not only did I have to
break loose all the piping and move it out of the way, but I also had to
take note of where each pipe was connected so that I could put it all back
together when needed. It took a few months to complete all the repairs to
the tote boat, and move on to the next job. When there was not a ship in
for repairs the leadman would often hide me out down at the hose pile,
where all the different types of hoses used in the yard were kept and
repaired.

Oil stained skin, muck of unknown origin, squeezing down through bilges
and tanks into places no one else would go; making the impossible possible
with blood, sweat and a cause upon my lips. Lord, Lord, I got them old
Todd shipyard blues again.